![]() ![]() Pretty can't save a poor game, but it sure does boost a well-designed one. Landscapes that don't feel like they're made out of puzzle-legos. (We have not pushed a crate into a portal, because that's too easy.)Īnd all of these mechanics are built into landscapes with a sense of history, a sense of scale, a sense of use and decay. By the end of DS2 we have done Prince-of-Persia wall runs into portals, we have swung on Link's hookshot into portals, we have used portals to connect - oh, you'll see. But they get the concept, and - more importantly - they get all of their other puzzle concepts, and they get how these mechanics can be bounced off each other in continually surprising ways. Portal and Portal 2 are deep explorations of one concept DS and DS2 use a limited version of that concept in a limited way. When a Darksiders game pulls out a portal gun, I don't expect them to out-portal Valve. But so what because the level design and puzzle construction are the best all-around work in the genre. The characters are stock cardboard ("oh, look, a big grim muscleman") and every single game mechanic is lifted from an earlier game. The plot is an overcomplicated mess, floating in a tepid goulash of Milton, Revelation, and second-string Vertigo. My first comment mirrors what I said about the original Darksiders: The writing is adequate. I won't expect to burn this kind of time again until (presumably) a Darksiders 3 appears in (presumably) three years or so. I suppose its golden age ran from Tomb Raider to Sands of Time? There have been some excellent ones recently, mind you Arkham Asylum counts, Bioshock counts, and we shouldn't neglect the finely-written Enslaved. I know that's not large for a modern RPG, and weighs as a feather in the MMO world, but I don't play those genres much for me, this is an enormous game.įortunately for me (I count my ambivalence quietly), the immersive, 3D, explore-puzzle-fight genre is in a gentle recession these days - at least on consoles. (It was my self-reward for the last HL milestone.) I think the counter on my save slot reached 36 hours. Last night I finished an epic - for me - drive through Darksiders 2. ![]()
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